Central Mexico lures videogame industry with fair
Queretaro, Mexico, Aug 3 (EFE).- The central Mexican city and state of Queretaro, the headquarters for some of the country’s main industries, on Wednesday kicked off the “Queretaverso,” an event whereby Mexico is hoping to attract the videogame sector and other creative industries.
Mexico represents between $1.5 billion and $2 billion of the Latin American videogame sector’s total estimated value of $7 billion, according to Mario Valle Reyes, the director of Altered Ventures, one of the firms based in California’s Silicon Valley which are backing Queretaro as a development hub for the sector.
However, he said, 99 percent of this market is on the consumption end consisting of products “which come from abroad” and are not developed within Mexico.
“What we have to begin to do is to build an ecosystem that makes Mexico push the industry from inside, but not as consumers: as creators,” he told EFE.
At Queretaverso, which will run until Aug. 5 at the Queretaro Convention Center, developers, universities, companies, investors and entrepreneurs will all gather to attract an industry that on the global level is valued at some $180 billion, Valle Reyes said.
He emphasized that Queretaro has a proven tradition of industry creation, just as came about decades ago with the automotive and aerospace industries, a double feat that could be repeated now in the software sector.
“(The state) has an individual tradition of taking in its hands … the creation of the future, which I think can be something really replicable in other industries. Not only Queretaro, all of Mexico, all of Latin America, can become a development region and not just a consumption (region).”
Within the framework of the industry fair, the municipality of Queretaro announced the creation of the “Bloque” Innovation and Creative Technology Center, a public space designed to facilitate access to new technologies, close the digital gap in society and foster technological development.
“This is the moment of the immersive technology industry, the metaverse, in which we must participate (and) position ourselves as one of the most important hubs in Latin America,” Mayor Luis Nava said.
“We want young people to launch (businesses), we want new unicorns to emerge from our country here,” he said.
Meanwhile, Queretaro state Gov. Mauricio Kuri emphasized the importance of helping this industry to take things “to the next level.”
“You have to back technology (and) innovation and not see it as something that can only be done in other countries,” he said.
Among the attendees at the fair were young people like Alessandra Ortiz, a software engineering student at the Queretaro Autonomous University and one of those who sees her future in the creative industries.
“(You have to come) to see more or less what you want to specialize in when you get a little older, the working and job opportunities. (In Mexico) we’re already very advanced but I think that we can still move forward a great deal more,” she said.
As part of the event, Queretaro and Amazon Web Services (AWS) signed a collaboration agreement whereby the firm will help the state, companies, entrepreneurs and society in general in the process of digital transformation.
EFE
sa/ppc/cpy/bp
